


Spirit of Man

by Tarlan



Category: Terminator (Movies)
Genre: Character Development, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-26
Updated: 2006-09-26
Packaged: 2017-10-18 16:58:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyle Reese joins John Connor for that last Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spirit of Man

_There must be something worth living for  
There must be something worth trying for  
Even some things worth dying for  
And if one man can stand tall  
There must be some hope for us all  
Somewhere, somewhere in the spirit of man._   
_  
**'Spirit of Man' from 'Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds'**   
_

****

The ground beneath him was a death trap in itself; his foot crunching down on rubble and bone as he half crawled, half scrabbled across the remains of what they had once called the City of Angels. Reese had decided long ago that the only angel who still came to this place was the one they called Death. He barely even noticed the mounds of bleached skulls that were crushed like eggshells under the massive caterpillar tracks of SkyNet controlled machines. His entire focus was on the massive harvester that was gathering up the unfortunate souls spotted by the Mark 8 Aerial machines and held captive by 600 Series Hunter-Killers.

He ducked behind a steel girder that had impaled the ground during its own fall from grace, and he chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip. Reese counted the humans being forced inside, seeing a couple of soldiers among them. SkyNet didn't care if the humans were old, young, soldier or scavenger. It wanted them for the experiments; performing autopsies on their living bodies as it researched ways to increase its power through organics. The human brain - an organic computer whose complexity was still beyond SkyNet. SkyNet had used those inhuman experiments to give itself a greater advantage in tracking down the last remnants of humanity. Terminators with plasticized skin had been easy to spot so SkyNet had found a way to cultivate human flesh to cover the endoskeleton. The Cyberdyne Systems 800 Series Model 101 was humanity's greatest threat.

All of this was irrelevant to Reese at this moment. His mission was to destroy this harvester and free as many of the captive humans as possible.

"LRRP team Yankee 13 to Firebase E-9."

"Yankee 13, we read you."

"Harvester located. Beginning assault."

"Roger, Yankee 13. Good luck."

Reese held up his hand and motioned his men forward. The H-K's and Mark 8 Aerials had left the harvester unguarded as they went to seek new human prey for SkyNet was so certain of the indestructibility of its harvesters that it did not even consider the possibility of one being attacked. Reese gave the order and a half-tracked jeep shot out of its hiding place. Streaks from a plasma cannon - recently 'liberated' from a downed H-K - lit up the sky. Reese snarled his triumph as the gunner hit the vulnerable seal beneath the Harvester's main turret with his first shot. Smoke plumed from the Harvester as the delicate circuitry melted in the heat, and Reese gave the order to converge on the stricken machine.

They thrust pipe bombs into the hydraulic servo that kept the heavily armored door sealed in place to prevent its captives escaping.

"Fire in the hole."

His people scrambled back to safety as the bomb destroyed the mechanism; the door dropping to the bone and rubble-littered ground. Humans ran for freedom. Reese's men grabbed them and herded them away quickly while Reese put the final touches to his battle plan and set a delayed timer to obliterate this harvester. He scrabbled up the side of a mound of skulls, his feet slipping in the loose material, and he barely made it over the top and into the relative safety behind the steel girder before a massive explosion trembled through the ground.

****

"Reese. Sergeant/Tech Com DN38416."

The door slid open and he shrugged through the gap, freely offering his hands to the dogs so they could sniff him and know that he was human. They wagged their tails excitedly and Kyle gave one an almost uncharacteristic caress but he felt good, and he wanted to share that feeling with everyone. Behind him came the dirtied and bloodied survivors of this raid. He had lost one of the captives to an H-K that had tracked them from the scene of destruction but he had brought 'home' seventeen others - and all of his men.

Kyle accepted the clap on his shoulder from his second in command, dropping his hand upon Taylor's momentarily before easing past. He was tired, and he was hungry. Even rat stew sounded good to him right now. As he walked past one intersection he saw John Connor huddled over a set of plans with his aides and guards surrounding him. Kyle paused for a moment; his eyes filled with awe for the hero of the human resistance. It was as if John Connor had been training all of his life for this human tragedy. He seemed to know Cyberdyne's weaknesses, how to hack through SkyNet's firewall and use its own circuitry against it - and he was winning. Slowly but surely, John Connor was destroying SkyNet from without and from within. The Artificial Intelligence was fighting him all the way, having replicated its programming across the world to reduce its vulnerability should one installation be destroyed or that computer be erased.

Although he had fought hard today, Kyle knew that the real battle was taking place in the cyber-world. John Connor controlled all of their endeavors. He formulated the plans on the physical world with the sole purpose of keeping humanity alive and providing protection for the most important soldiers in the resistance: the Hackers.

And John Connor was the greatest hacker of them all.

Connor turned suddenly, staring straight at Kyle as if he had sensed him watching. Kyle ducked his head and started to move on, strangely embarrassed at being caught in his moment of hero worship, but he stopped when he heard his name.

"Reese."

Connor beckoned him inside and pointed to a small alcove with an empty seat; his intention clear. With some trepidation, Kyle sat down and watched his hero pore over the latest plans to hit SkyNet's laser cannon factory in what had once been known as Hollywood. An hour passed by but Kyle barely noticed. He studied the man before him.

John Connor was in his forties, more than twenty years older than Kyle. His face was scarred and Kyle recalled some rumor that it had happened during his first raid on Cyberdyne's headquarters five years ago. Surreptitiously, Kyle removed the Polaroid that he always kept upon his person, and he stared hard at the woman depicted in it even though he knew her image better than he knew his own. Many soldiers carried pictures of Sarah Connor; a woman they considered to be the mother of the Human Resistance - and mother to John Connor. However, this picture was special. It was an original, and John Connor had given it to him. He still recalled the cryptic words that came with it.

"This is for you. She would have wanted you to have this."

The planning session was drawing to a close and the aides and commanders drifted away through the labyrinthine corridors until only John Connor and two guards remained. Kyle felt a moment of guilt as he took in the dark circles beneath the green and gold eyes - eyes that were so much like his own. He saw Sarah Connor in her son's features; the high cheekbones that gave her a strong, square face, the straight nose and the full lips. His own lips quirked in memory of that time when he had gazed at his reflection in an old mirror. He and Sarah, and hence John, shared many of those features with the similarity sufficient that he had once fantasized that he was John Connor's son.

Connor looked over to him and his hard eyes softened with some bittersweet emotion that Kyle likened to the sad smile on Sarah Connor's face in the photograph. Kyle stood up as Connor approached.

"It went well today?"

"I brought back all my men and freed seventeen captives. The harvester was destroyed. We found the weak spot exactly where you said it would be."

Connor smiled, his eyes shining in pleasure.

"Come walk with me, and eat with me."

Kyle thought his heart would burst from his chest in pride as he walked by John Connor's side. Up ahead, in the deepest reaches of the Firebase that used to be a parking lot beneath ABC Entertainment Center in Century City, Kyle could hear voices. However, these voices sounded different and, as they drew closer, he realized that what he could hear was singing. He paused, confused by the soft sounds of many voices joined in harmony. Connor stopped too, and turned to him.

"Do you know what day it is?" Kyle shook his head but Connor went on as if he had already guessed that Kyle would not know the answer. "It's Christmas Day."

Kyle frowned. What was the point of remembering Christmas in a place where even angels feared to tread, unless their name was Death?

"It's a time to give thanks for God's continued attempts to save us - even though we continually spurn his help. And it's a time to be joyous, and to remember the people who are special to us. Come on."

Connor turned back, smiling softly as Kyle let the words sink in. With a start, Kyle realized that John Connor considered him - Sergeant Kyle Reese - to be someone special. He followed on behind and stepped across the threshold into a warm room lit only by candlelight. At the centre was the replica of a tree, built out of scavenged parts of H-K's and downed aerial machines. Its boughs were thick green and brown wiring, and from each hung tiny metallic stars cut out of the hull of a Cyberdyne attack vehicle. He knew this because part of the hull stood to one side, curved over, with candles set behind it to allow the flickering light to pass through the star-shaped holes.

Multi-colored lights flashed intermittently, adding to the magical effect.

Kyle dropped down beside John Connor, too entranced by the beauty of sight and sound around him to even acknowledge the plate of stew and cup of water placed in front of him. He heard John Connor raise his voice to join the others in chorus and, hesitantly, Kyle joined in as almost forgotten memories from his cruelly short childhood flooded back to him.

As the evening wore on, people drifted away, only to be replaced by others as word spread through the base. Eventually, the evening came to a close until, finally, only Kyle and John Connor remained. Kyle turned to this enigmatic hero who had chosen to share this moment with him.

"Why?"

"Because we have to remember that we have something worth fighting for; even dying for. We have to know that all our sacrifices are worth it."

Kyle felt a shiver of foreboding race down his spine as Connor's eyes glistened for a moment with unshed tears.

"Why me?"

"Because you're more special to me, and to this world, than you could ever imagine, Kyle. Some day you may learn why... and, if you do, I hope you will remember this night - and how much I love you - and not hate me."

****

 **Epilogue:**

Two days later, John Connor began the assault on SkyNet's main installation and, in all that time, Kyle Reese never once moved from his side at Connor's insistence. Once the attack began they fought together, ate together and even slept side by side on the cold hard ground. Connor spoke to him often, imparting cryptic information that seemed meaningless and yet Kyle knew there had to be a good reason so he listened carefully.

When they came upon the Time Portal, Kyle began to understand. SkyNet had sent an 800 series H-K back through time to destroy Sarah Connor before she could become the mother to the Resistance. If she died then all was lost for there would be no Resistance and no John Connor to lead it.

Kyle thought about Sarah Connor. She was a woman from another time and place, but she was a woman he had fallen in love with through the image he had lost three days ago, and through the legends that grew up around her.

"This might be a one way ticket."

"I know, but I think both of us know I was destined to do this."

As he stepped, naked, into the time portal, Kyle turned back to face John Connor one more time.

"I don't hate you... and I never will."

THE END


End file.
